By KEVIN WADLOW kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted – Saturday, April 17, 2010 06:00 AM EDT
A new oil-drilling report commissioned for the Florida House of Representatives describes the risk for oil operations in state waters as “serious but manageable.” The 177-page report, written by consultants for Willis Structured Risk Solutions of London, was released April 9.
On Friday, a House energy-policy committee was expected to introduce a bill that would allow oil exploration and drilling in state waters.
“Risk of damage to natural and human habitats from hurricanes alone dwarfs the [oil-drilling] risks we have uncovered,” says the Willis report. It acknowledges the Florida Keys reef stands out as an area of particular environmental sensitivity.
“As one moves [south] along Florida’s Gulf Coast … the coastline and nearshore areas become increasingly sensitive to prospective oil and gas activities,” says the report.
Reef Relief policy advisor Paul Johnson praised technical aspects of the Willis report, but said it does not go far enough to highlight the risk to Keys and South Florida waters.
“Even if the risk is low, it’s inappropriate to go anywhere in South Florida,” Johnson said. “The environmental and social consequences of a spill are so enormous that South Florida [drilling] should be off the table until the risk is zero.”
Other drilling opponents in South Florida were unmoved by the report.
“One spill can end it all,” said Jonathan Ullman, an Everglades specialist for the Sierra Club in Miami.
Ullman pointed to a months-long major oil spill from a drilling platform in Australia’s Timor Sea that caused “devastating effects” to the marine environment there.
“If you put the submerged state lands on the market to the high bidder, an oil spill is not a matter of if but when,” Ullman said.
Johnson said from Tallahassee that even if the House bill is introduced, it appears unlikely that a companion bill will be passed by the Florida Senate.
A Senate bill on oil drilling has made little headway since being introduced March 11. The legislative session ends April 30.
“There’s not enough time and not enough interest on the Senate side for anything to go through this year,” Johnson said.
But in 2011, drilling advocates will take leadership positions in both the Senate and house, he said.
An April 6 spill from a crude-oil pipeline off Louisiana should serve as a warning, say Florida conservationists. The U.S. Coast Guard said the estimated 18,000 gallons of crude oil affected “an area of approximately 160 square miles,” including portions of the Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
“Introducing a bill to allow oil drilling in our nearshore waters in the midst of Louisiana’s ongoing oil spill cleanup is a twisted bit of irony,” said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of Progress Florida.
Several Monroe County groups — including the Key West City Commission, the Key West Chamber of Commerce and the Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council — have passed resolutions calling for continued bans on Gulf drilling.
“Despite advances in oil-drilling technology, there is no positive assurance that catastrophic damage to our coastline, beaches, plants and fish could be avoided during normal operating conditions or during storm situations,” says a Key West city resolution from November.
A federal plan unveiled March 31 proposes to open areas of the Gulf of Mexico that had been closed to oil exploration for decades.
Although President Obama and other officials said the areas lie at least 125 miles off Florida’s coast, they later acknowledged the draft zones come much closer to Dry Tortugas National Park and the Tortugas Ecological Reserves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.